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“Nothing is stronger than nature. With nature in front of us we can do everything well.” (Joaquin Sorolla)

Despite living far from the ocean, Spanish realist Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (known colloquially as “Sorolla,” which is pronounced suh-ROY-ya) surely had saltwater running through his veins. 

Much like his contemporary John Sing...

A Wisconsin native, Daniel Gerhartz often returns to the same local landscapes. “I’ve got a couple of brothers who are really big outdoorsmen, and they often tip me off to some pretty nice spots,” he says. “But I can just as easily pull an Andrew Wyeth, who painted endless compositions from one farmstead, and stay within a quarter mile of my front door.”

Once he choose...

For most of its history, portraiture had a job to do: project power. A commissioned likeness told the viewer who mattered, who ruled, who deserved to be remembered — the sitter’s wealth, status, and place in the social order rendered in paint for posterity. That function held for centuries. Then the 20th century arrived, and portraiture had to answer a much harder question.

In 1921, Arthur Lismer stood on the rocky shore of Georgian Bay and watched a storm bend a lone pine nearly sideways against the wind. The result, A September Gale, Georgian Bay, is one of Canadian art’s most recognizable images: a wind-thrashed tree clinging to windswept rock, set against churning water and scudding clouds. Lismer called it a “nature symphony,” and th...

Kevin Macpherson has been running toward the horizon since he was a kid. As a teenager, he hitchhiked across the country with $10 in his pocket. At the start of his marriage, he and his wife spent their honeymoon in Ireland — for six months, funded by everything Macpherson owned: $5,000, spent down to the last $10 before they came home and started over. “Our whole life is pre...